Our ability to adapt mentally to any situation is why we got to the stars, why the Choz were here at all. Even so, the population problem weighed heavily on me, along with the strong and unshakable suspicion that something a lot darker than the mere transformation of a group of people into a new and alien culture was at stake.
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Note that “mere”indeed! How quickly one adapts!
When George’s companion, Joanna, returned with the other three of the last brood from an extended visit to some of her children from the past cycle, I was crowded out of even the large leader’s quarters. The time had come to do some poking about anyway, I thought, and so I left them and decided on a trip over the hills to see what the situation was further afield.
Following the river’s course up to its source was tricky. Less vegetation of the edible kind could be found as you went up, and the plant growth rate seemed slower, more normal, than down on the plains. This area looked more and more as if it were the way the planet might have been before the virus inside us decided to change all that.
As for peopleChoz, that isthere were few, and soon none at all. The air was chillier, too, the temperature dropping about a degree per three-hundred me-ters. The hills weren’t tall, really, but the valleys were deep and sheltered, some much colder than the surrounding hillsides or the plainsas much as a twenty-five-degree temperature drop in places the sun never saw.
The virus didn’t like the cold, I discovered. Cold places had a menacing pale yellow, the danger color, even when sonar showed no threat other than the chill, which penetrated a bit into my thick, hairy hide.
When I persisted in going through such places despite the color warnings, the virus tried getting tougher. I fought it off with difficulty. It was easier know-fortable, feverish at times. When that didn’t stop me the virus tried triggering the hunger mechanism, but I fought it off with difficulty. It was easier knowing what was causing these things; the intellect wasn’t supreme, but it did help fight the impulseshelped me more than most, since what I resented more than anything was the fact that such reactions were being imposed.
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Seiglein Corporation imposed. Its will was law; its people were its property, possessions just like the buildings and the power plants and the ships with which it controlled the trade between hundreds of planets. Scouts were the only semifree spirits left in Seiglein’s universe; that was the heart of why we were out there, the hundreds of men and women who couldn’t stand taking orders.
This is why I could fight the virus. Every once in a while they’d hit on something that would work, turn me, make me do their bidding, but the same thing didn’t work twice. They controlled the cells, the body fluids and functions, but they could not control the mind directly without destroying it.
It took four days to get across the hills, days of loneliness that were, for me, very satisfying ones as I proved to myself that I was not anybody’s property, that I could still be me in this crazy world.
From a ledge on the other side of the hills I could narrow-pulse for great distances. There were rolling hills on this side, more trees, a network of larger and more imposing rivers. Food-color was all over, and I was hungry after the sparse diet of mountain grasses.
As for Choz, they were present. I made out the slight silver of at least eight towns too far to pulse, showing up only as tiny blobs of the web-color to my vision.
Gingerly I made my way down the last slopes and joined the large herd grazing all around. There weren’t quite as many as I’d first calculated there would be, and as I ate I considered this. True, I had seen only a small section of this place as yet, but there should be more according to my math.
As dusk approached, invisible to me except for the gradual fading of the colors, I headed for the nearest town, hoping at least to find members of the original party, like George, or near-generation to those pioneers.
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As I hopped into the townquite a bit larger than the pointa young female came up to me.
“Hi wudja pop?” she asked.
“Huh?” I responded. “I don’t understand.”
“Wudja pop?” she repeated, getting a little annoyed. I could only shake my head and try again.
“I don’t understand you,” I said slowly and carefully. “Are there any Firsts or Seconds here?” This meant old-timers, first or second generation.
She caught a little of it. “Fusts nap,” she responded in what was an obvious negative. “Sees Mara dere.” She gestured with her tail to a spot down the street, but it was impossible to tell where.
I thanked her, though she probably didn’t understand anything but the implied sentiment, and continued on down the street.
The town was getting crowded as the mob retreated to their homes for the night. They all seemed to speak variations of the gibberish the girl was spouting, and I could make nothing out of it.
I seemed to remember some teacher saying that the faster a species breeds and matures the more it mutates. Well, there was only one physical mutation here, but the sociocultural mutation was obviously in full swing. The youngest generations were speaking a completely different language even this soon and this close;
I was fairly certain that it would get more diffuse, more alien, the farther away I roamed from the home of a First like George.
There was a large building at the end of the street, similar to the one at the point, although there was no sign of a church. I decided that this must house the ranking member of the tribe and went up to it, poked my head in the doorway, and asked, “Anybody here understand what I’m saying?”
There was a rustle, and I could sound three or four almost grown younglings, one of whom said, “Wudja yerring ja?” in a decidedly nasty tonea young male, just starting to feel his strength.
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Suddenly a girl’s voice said sharply, “Layrf, Mag!” and she came to the door.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s been a long time since we’ve heard straight speech around here.”
“Things are certainly different,” I replied apologet-ically. “I’m Bar Holliday, from the point.”
There was still enough light to note her radiate some surprise.
“Hollidayl You’re the new one, then. The scout pi-loti”
“News travels fast.”
She shrugged. “News travels fast anywhere, although it gets somewhat distorted by the time it gets to us. Come! You can share my room for the night and tell me everything!”
We went to the rear of the building, an extremely well-constructed one with at least eight spacious compartments, and I stretched out tiredly on a very thick mat of soft, broad leaves that were much more comfortable than anything I’d experienced at the point. And, of course, for the past few days I’d been sleeping on rocks and grass, in the open.
“I sound you need a preen,” she said, and I grunted. “I’ve been across the mountains, out of touch for days,” I told her.
She proceeded to do the preen, which was needed much more than I’d suspected. Saliva salve or not, some of the burrs and little insects were deeply im-bedded and hurt like hell.
Finished, she reclined on the mat and faced me.
“Well, I guess we should start by completing the introductions,” she laughed. “Now that I’ve chewed you to pieces and all. I’m Mara, Second Mother to Gar-town here.”
I thought for a moment. A Second, the first I’d really run into. Seconds, George had said, were taught in-tensively by their parents and were in many ways human-culture, yet it was one generation removed. They knew all the stories, the legends, and had as
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much knowledge as could be passed on to them, yet their only experience was of being Choz. She has never seen the sky or the countless stars, I thought, nor held anything in her hands, yet superficially she was as culturally similar to me as George.
“Tell me all about yourself,” she urged.
I chuckled. “Not much to tell, really. We licked the problem of faster-than-light travel just a few years after the Peace Victory was launched, and I’ve been on the job the last several years discovering new worlds for humanity to breed into.”
She sighed, and I could tell she was romanticizing.
“To go such distancesI’ve never been further than from here to the point myself, where I was bom. I’ve been here I don’t know how longa dozen or more melts, anyway.” She shifted slightly. “Tell mewhat do they look like, these stars?”
I reached for an analogy. “You know how water sparkles as it flows?” I tried, and she nodded. “Imagine just the sparkles, millions of them, against a field of jet black, and you’ll get some idea.”
She tried but couldn’t manage it.
“The people who live out thereare they happier than we? Better off?” she asked, reminding me of Guz’s question.
There was still only one answer. “I don’t know,” I replied. “Here all things are provided us and we are managed by an unseen intelligence. Out there it’s pretty much the same, only the intelligence lives in a great city on a planet that is almost all city, and everybody knows who and what it is.”
We talked for most of the evening, she full of questions about things she could only imagine but never comprehend fullya deaf person can academ-ically grasp the concept of music, but never experience itthrilled to have somebody exotic to talk to. That she was a. bored woman was obvious.
“It’s the breed,” she explained. “Each generation is more than the last, and outnumbers the last. You can’t
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teach or minister to them in just the short time we have. My own children are so different that I can hardly relate to them anymore. The old ways, the old beliefs, are going as we get more and more removed from our Firsts.”
I nodded. “I don’t know what is being created here, but it will be a different kind of person, surely, than you and I can know or understand. Old George talked about it at the point a lot.”
“George!” she exclaimed. “I should like to see him again. It has been so long, so very long. Tell me, how is he?”
“Good, but kind of down in spirit, like you.”
“Yes, well, he is my father, you know. It’s natural I should miss him.”
Sure he was, I thought, feeling stupid. If the others spread out as much as possible, and she came from the point, odds were good she was one of George’s first brood. “You ought to get back to see him,” I suggested. “I’m sure he’d like that.”
Her voice seemed strained, emotionally clouded, as she said, “Iwell, there’s always children to see to, and I couldn’t see him without them.”
For a moment I didn’t understand, and said as much.
“Well, ah, ohit’s so very hard to know how to say it. Father and the others, they were a Christian group, you know. You’ve never been through the Breed. There’s no choice, no thinking there. When it came on the second time, well, George was First Male and strongest. My children are his children and his grandchildren. It’s normal herebut he couldn’t han-dle it. It was against his beliefs.”
So that was it, I thought sadly. So much for ac-culturation. Incest was still a potent taboo, and George had committed it, was afraid he’d do it againprobably had done it again. She’d inherited some of the meaningless, in the context of the Choz, revulsion that her father and the other Firsts had felt.
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“That Just proves how much we cause our own problems, and other’s,” I comforted. “After all, in a human context inbreeding causes problems. Some, anyway. But not here, not among the Choz.”
Where was that aptitude for mental adaptation now? I wondered. Some things were too deeply in-grained in certain people for their own good. A lot of misery had been caused in this way.
“You still should go,” I urged. “Why not come back with me? It looks like the kids in there can take care of themselves.”
“Maybe,” she replied. “We’ll see.”
I stayed maybe a week, maybe more, in the town. Mara was good company; always inquisitive, always wanting to hear stories about my exploits, which I was never at a loss for. She had several sessions a day with different younglings, trying to teach them what she could, but it was a hopeless battle. Few stayed long to hear her, and those that did were only mildly curious.
I could take no part in these sessions. The language had changed too much. With each lesson she seemed to become a little more despondent, and a little more receptive to suggestions to something different, breaking free of the mold.
I liked her for that. She had a quick wit and an insatiable curiosity combined with a naivete that allowed her to accept my boastful stories uncritically.
But, most important, she was frustrated with this dull and boring life, which was amazing because, un-like me, she’d known nothing else and didn’t quite understand what she craved.
On my tours I also discovered that even though most of the last brood looked adult, they were really of different ages. The Breed came upon people at different times although at regular intervals.
The next session of the Breedafter the inter-regnum that occurred only once for a short period
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every two yearswas coming fast upon us. Some of the females were growing sleeker, their color and texture brightening and heightening, and I could feel strange stirrings within myself as well. I had landed, it appeared, near the end of one cycle, and now I was about to go into my first.
The change was as apparent in Mara as in anyone. It was an indefinable emotional twinge inside. Oddly, the women seemed aware of it only indirectly, by observing the reactions of the males. Not all of them turned me on, just a small percentage. If one male had to service five or more females, it couldn’t be done in one cycle, which explained why there seemed less population pressure than reason had dictated. That did not alter the fact that this world was headed for collapse, only delayed it a few years.
“Let’s go visit George,” I urged her one day. “Come on.”
“ButThe Breed!” she protested. “It’ll take a week or more to cut south to the pass.”
“Over the mountains, the way I came in, not around and through.”
She nervously scanned the hills. “I don’t know,” she began hesitantly. “C’mon!” I urged. “You’re bored and frustrated here. You know it. This is a new experience, an adventure, something different! Come with me. I know he’d love to see you!”
Finally she relented. “I’ll do it,” she decided. “When do we go?”
“How about tomorrow morning?” I responded.
I dreamed for the first time that night. It was funny I almost never dreamed, and hadn’t yet done so here. Of course, I probably had, but I never remembered any of them, which amounts to the same thing.
This particular dream was one of those weird ones you can never quite figure out, but it was filled with the color green and with strange feelings, urges, and
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impulses. Superimposed over it all seemed to be a bright violet netting, like a honeycomb, active, growing, reaching out, building, doing things. I seemed to run in and out of the violet netting, which grew around me, trying to trap me against that green field, yet there were roughly rectangular holes through which I could crawl and escape.
I awoke suddenly, feeling funny, as if my mouth were full of mush. I scanned the room. Mara was still sleeping, snoring slightly, and all was still and quiet. I bit down, seeming to snap something spongy as I did so. I scanned the area ahead of my face and found, to my surprise, that I had for the first time secreted webbing from the flap in my tongue and had somehow constructed a tiny web-wall, now hardening. I could feel the stuff in the canal in my tongue, like a piece of chalk or stick yet still soft and flexible.
I lay there for some time trying to make sense out of what was happening to me, before drifting off into a light and uncomfortable sleep.
The next morning I apologized to Mara for the mess. I’d built a low barrier between us, it seemed. She laughed, made a joke about my true feelings coming out in my dreams, then explained to me that it was a common thing and easily corrected, if a bit messy and hard to clean up.
The webbing dissolved in urine.
That concept wasn’t something I would ever think of, yet it opened up a possibility in my mind that was exciting: liberating my ship. I had gone out to that field every day and seen that mound of webbing lock-ing it in. The ship was still in there, all rightI felt sure of it. I don’t know why; it should have been broken down with the rest of the artifacts. Instead, it had been covered, shielded, and protected.
Two or three minutes, that’s all I would need. Two or three minutes and I could lift off, even without hands.
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Then I recalled George’s mentioning that a couple of the early colonists had made it off the planet in their shuttle. But they had been doomed anyway, of course, since they couldn’t get anywhere in the shuttle and the big ship was beyond their management. Yet the shuttle had been destroyed only after it proved a threat. The virus hadn’t been able to eat it away in the time it took to take off, and space had killed the virus clinging to the outer shell.
Why had the virus been so ineffective?
The armor, probably. Spacecraft were made of the toughest materials, not like the simple suits, prefabs, and the like you’d normally use.
But I didn’t have a shuttle; I had a small FTL ship that could be run not by mechanical controls but by direct impulse from the brain.
Now I was more anxious than ever to get back.
Seven
The trip back was easier than the trip up. We had each other to help over the rough spots. The bugs still didn’t like those cold places, but with me there urging her on, egging her on, Mara proved to be as stubborn and determined as I.
As we made our way, both of us began changing. I could feel it, knew that it was she who was changing and I who was reacting. Yet once the burning started, it would not go away. Her green seemed to get brighter as I watched, becoming more and more intense; her awkward Choz body seemed to grow beautiful, sleek, attractive, her every move a thing of beauty. And there was the scenta smell that was subtle at the start, but growing more and more powerful, more al-luring, as time passed.
It was the Breed, I knew. I’d seen animals react strangely when the females were in heat, and this is what I was now experiencing firsthand.
“What am I going to do about it?” I asked her plaintively. Until this started I had experienced no sexual urges whatsoever, no attraction beyond a platonic liking for another person.
“The Breed is normal and natural,” she replied soothingly. “I counted on this in deciding to come. We will mate and breed before we reach the point and this will ease the problem with Father.”
Stupid me, I thought sourly. Being in space so long cuts you off from the practical. Still, I didn’t understand why her calculating response bothered meI
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had certainly enjoyed sex with many women Td hardly known, and this wasn’t much different. Better, really, since the act was such a natural and normal part of life on this world, particularly her whole life, that I should have just taken it in stride as I had the rest of this strange experience.